Camera IconBut one welfare group says the increase will do little to address overall wage stagnation or improve consumer confidence.Picture: WA News

Hundreds of thousands of West Australians stand to get a pay rise after WA’s industrial body lifted the State minimum wage, noting the uptick in the resources sector was not yet flowing through to the rest of the economy.

In a decision today, the WA Industrial Relations Commission lifted the State minimum wage by 2.75 per cent, taking the local minimum wage to $746.90 a week.

Handing down the decision, chief commissioner Pamela Scott noted while there were signs of improvement in WA’s mining sector those benefits were not being seen by lowly paid workers.

“The WA economy is in the process of improving from a trough and there are signs of growth,” she said.

“While there are signs of improvement in sectors such as mining those benefits have not yet flowed through to the rest of the economy.”

The decision will impact about 27,000 employers and some 300,000 employees in WA.

WA’s minimum wage is still marginally better than the national minimum wage, which stands at $740.80 a week.

State welfare group the WA Council of Social Services said the decision did do enough to improve the pay of those on the lowest wages, and did not address wage stagnation, increase consumer confidence, or boost the flat domestic economy.

WACOSS spokesman Chris Twomey said the impact would affect the community services sector, which was already seeing more and more people whose income was too low to make ends meet.

“Unfortunately, the increases awarded to the minimum wage will simply not be enough to address the persistent hardship that low-paid wage earners can find themselves in,” he said.